Issa panel keeps Dems in the dark

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Republicans began at least a two-year campaign of intense probes into the actions of the Obama administration on Tuesday by turning down attempts by panel Democrats to be more in the loop in those investigations.

The panel — on a party-line vote — turned away an amendment from ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) requiring the majority to seek agreement with the minority before issuing a subpoena. If the minority objected, then a vote on the committee would have occurred. This was the same agreement that existed between former top panel Republican Tom Davis of Virginia and Democrat Henry Waxman of California.

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“This standard … has been the approach of all committee chairmen since the McCarthy era,” Cummings said during an organizational meeting of the oversight committee Tuesday morning.

He cited as an exception former committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who issued more than 1,000 unilateral subpoenas in the later years of the Clinton administration. “This approach led to serious abuses,” and was abandoned when Davis became chair of the panel, Cummings said.

In objecting to the amendment, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he is simply following the same rules on subpoenas that were used under the chairmanship of Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) when Issa was ranking member.

“We had no such agreement … and I am not here to complain about any differences that may have occurred,” Issa said.

“However, there is a long tradition of consultation. I intend to continue that consultation,” he added.

Burton briefly defended the set of rules Issa was proposing as well as his stint as chair of the panel.

“We had severe questions about illegal campaign contributions coming from all over the world,” Burton said, noting that more than 100 people took the Fifth Amendment and fled the country. “It was a very different time. These are different times.”